


Hollow Pumpkin

by okrablossom



Category: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okrablossom/pseuds/okrablossom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katrina Van Tassel explains where the pumpkin came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollow Pumpkin

The pumpkin was my idea.

I did seriously consider the schoolmaster for a few weeks: he was charming in the way of ascetic men whose souls have been given over to the glories of study but whose bodily tastes are mired in the countryside full of fresh mown hay, apple tree buds, the soughing of oxen in yoke. He looked at me the same way as my mother's table.

I am my father's daughter, child of earth and the moment, for whom a promenade is to walk the fenceline of the back forty, patching wire stuffed in my skirt pockets. I will dance wild as the rest of the town but I come when the cows call before dawn. Any man who's going to reap my fields had better love the dew on his boot toes, ragged whuff of horse breath in his ear, long hot days of roots down and leaves up.

I'm not above revenge. I overheard him speaking to himself, or perhaps the poor nag he borrows from Van Ripper: the wealth of the Van Tassel farm was to be traded in for a ticket south and east, some terrain unknown and overrun by savages, for guns and a stab at taming wilderness. The wilderness does not come tame without some pain.

So Brom and I fought. He went long in the jowl. He looked at other women. Perhaps it was more than just testing for Ichabod. And I shone all my sun on the schoolmaster. He grew, I do not deny it. But did he grow enough? I wanted to know. I let him down gently at the end of the frolic, after he'd devoured half of the tables.

Then Brom Bones and his gang rode the night, black steeds all hoof and spark, breath into stories, enacting the terrors of so many winter night tales. They hounded Ichabod and his nag, drove him hither and yon, sometimes just hooves against cobbles, sometimes the lot of them whooping and calling like the foals of nightmares themselves.

Just that morning I'd walked through the vegetables, thrusting the last of the peas into my hod, safe from the frost, nipping peppers and deadheading marigolds. I chose the pumpkin myself; small enough to be hurled, large like a man's head, light enough once I'd hollowed it, once I'd shouldered it back to the house where I nailed the candle down through its stem end to root.

He could have come to me afterwards, hoping, you see, that I'd changed my mind. He could have offered me tales to frighten all future nights when he'd rub warm my feet. It was just half a thought. I admire him more for knowing that I knew my mind.

But I do love to hear the tale as Brom tells it over. The last final dash for the church's cold yard, the baying, the frenzy of horse hoofs, the wind as it tore away hope to the sky. Down comes the pumpkin, pitched hard by Brom's arm, breaking to pieces at Ichabod's feet.

I settle myself in the curve of that muscle, lean my head in, eyes closed. Morning comes soonest and this tale is now done.


End file.
